Word: burma
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...Burma's state media quoted a government official saying the situation in the country was "returning to normal." This as the death toll from last week's cyclone is estimated, by some, to be as high as 100,000, as bodies float in waterways, as shortages of water, rice, medicine and fuel, as well as fear of disease, grip the populace and people swarm shops and and dash toward any location where they think they can find supplies to help them make it through the crisis...
...never been easy to divine what Burma's military rulers consider "normal." Last September, the government sent out hundreds of thousands of soldiers to throttle pro-democracy demonstrations initiated by the country's Buddhist monks. But amid this week's devastation, relatively few of those soldiers have shown up to offer assistance. Meanwhile, the monks have reportedly been warned not to open their monasteries to the homeless for sanctuary. Government bureaucrats, meanwhile, are said to be charging a fee for building materials they are in charge of "distributing...
...price hikes that had sparked last year's civil protests; additional increases could push tens of thousands of shantytown dwellers from chronic malnutrition to starvation. Outside Rangoon, the fate of millions remains largely unknown, since roads are blocked and telephone lines are down in a region that serves as Burma's rice bowl. In a frightening glimpse of the storm's destructive power, the country's state media reported that in the delta town of Bogalay alone, 10,000 people had been killed. Infrastructure has been heavily damaged, with some aid workers reporting it could be months before the electrical...
...Burmese government radio station announced that the constitutional referendum would not be held until May 24 in the hardest-hit townships, reversing an earlier edict that voting would take place on schedule. Initially a state-run newspaper said there would be no delay "because the people of Burma are eagerly looking forward to the chance to vote," says Aung Zaw, a Burmese in exile who edits the Thailand-based newsmagazine, The Irrawaddy. "But what the people in Burma are eagerly looking forward to is the military government bringing them food and water and shelter...
...place that the cyclone spared was Burma's new administrative capital, Naypyidaw, which was carved out of the jungle by the ruling junta in 2005. Even Burmese civil servants who had to move north to the new capital were given no explanation for the shift. But some local journalists in Rangoon speculated that junta leader Than Shwe had been swayed by soothsayers who predicted that civil unrest and a natural disaster would soon strike the city of 5 million. In September, the monk-led protests made the first part of the prophecy come true; the cyclone fulfilled the second half...